The Jamboree on the Air (JOTA) is an annual international scouting and guiding activity in which scouts and guides talk to each other from
amateur radio stations.
JOTA provides an exellent opportunity to meet Scouts and Guides from
many countries and other parts of New Zealand.

The Jamboree on the Internet (JOTI) is held at the same time as JOTA, but it is an internet activity.
Find out about JOTI pages by going to the New Zealand Scouting website,
http://www.scouts.org.nz/
and click on "JOTI" on "events" in the home page main menu.

JOTA and JOTI are always held on the third full weekend of October each year.

48th JOTA (2005) World JOTA Report is now on line
The report of the 49th JOTA is on line from the World Scout website.
Go to 49th JOTA report

Your Attention Please.

The next JOTA and JOTI will be on the 19th and 20th October 2013. This is the weekend before Labour Weekend.

TO TAKE PART IS SIMPLE
Just arrange to visit an amateur radio station sometime during the JOTA period. Let the amateur
operator establish a contact with another JOTA station, and then you can talk to those at the other station.
You can also get your amateur to set up a station at a Scout or Guide Headquarters, or at some other
'interesting' or appropriate place such as a camp. The radio activities can become part of the camping
programme.

That's it in a nutshell. Very simple, easy to organise, very enjoyable and its free. Half a million Scouts and
Guides regularly take part all over the world each year, so it is a really big event in International Scouting and
Guiding.

WORLD SCOUT CALLING FREQUENCIES There are preferred frequencies for initiating radio contacts with other scout stations. Once a contact is made with another station, you should move to another frequency to allow others to use the calling frequency.

JOTA-JOTI Contact Database. I suggest that you register on the JOTA-JOTI database. This enables you to find other scouts and guides who intend being active on JOTA or JOTI. Most have email addresses so for JOTA, you can email them and arrange to contact them by radio. For JOTI, the database gives you a list of those whom you can contact, with contact details.

To register, go to www.jotajoti.org and click on "Create new account." Fill in the details on the form and follow the instructions. Please note that spaces in your User Name and your Password are not permissible.

By being registered, you have access to a very useful list of other participants in this activity. The more who register, the more useful the list will be. So please register.

ECHOLINK.
Echolink will be more extensively used than last year. Details of its use are given in the Echolink page.

See also below about Scout Nets.

WHAT IS HAPPENING AROUND THE WORLD.
See what is happening world wide on JOTA by having a look on the World Scout Organisation's pages at http://www.scout.org/jota

JOTA and JOTI ORGANISATION.
JOTA and JOTI are coordinated by the World Scout Bureau in Geneva and are organised by National
Organisers in each Scouting country. The New Zealand National Organiser for JOTA is Marie Smolonicki, whose amateur radio call sign is ZL2THE. Many Scout Districts have their own District JOTA and JOTI Organisers who arrange for the Scouts and Guides to take part in the activities.

LANGUAGES

Life would be so much easier, but perhaps less interesting, if every Scout spoke the same language. But this is not the case. How can we help Scouts to communicate with fellow-Scouts that do not speak their language?

Try the translator machine:
This is a free translation service available on the internet. You can enter up to one page of text in one language and ask it to translate it into another. It has over 20 different languages available. Last year, several JOTA groups used it to translate radio messages on the spot. It may not be very fast, but it is fun to do and it does help. You could even prepare a standard message for your Scouts in many different languages. Click on the translate button on the radio scouting web site
at and it will get you to the translator machine.

Or else, try using the JCODE. This was developed to help JOTA participants in different countries to overcome the language barrier.

JOTA/JOTI POSTERS.

The poster for the 56th JOTA/JOTI has yet to be designed. This is last year's one.

SCOUT NETS.Wouldn't it be fun to meet new scouting friends on Echolink? Echolink allows world wide amateur radio contacts using the internet and amateur radio repeaters set up for the this mode of operation. It is the basis for the World Scout Net, held on the first Saturday of the month at 22.00 GMT (10 am NZST Sunday). Echolink node 131124 is the one to connect to.

CONTACT.NATIONAL ORGANISER FOR JOTA IN NZ:
This is now Marie Smolnicki, ZL2THE, mah_re@xtra.co.nz